Internet has changed the course of things drastically in the 21st century. With all the information explosion that has occurred due the booming of the internet, there is just so much out there to know and learn. In a way libraries of yesterday have lost importance in today’s world. The internet has successfully replaced all prior sources of information to human beings and established a monopoly of sorts. While there are many aspects in which the internet has affected our lives, we will concentrate on the “information” part for now. There is so much information and data out there, but how does one find it?

It’s alright to say that internet without Google wouldn’t be that big a deal after all. We have this powerful search engine at our disposal and “searching” about anything just is a matter of seconds. Again when it comes to Google, there are numerous ways in which it has become an unavoidable part of our lives with maps, youtube etc. But again, lets not deviate and stick to “Search”. There are two parts to searching. The first part is played by Google and they are doing a good job by indexing all this wealth of information so that we search it quickly. The second part is where the ball is in our court. Its a fact that not all people know how to use Google to its best. They just don’t know how to search for information in the right way. Knowing that Google is capable of indexing only 3-4% of the information lying out there in spite of being so good, it just makes the scene petty if we can’t find the best links about what we are looking for.

Enter Google. Again.

This time its “Google Directory”. http://directory.google.com/ is the best thing on the web that I recently came across. This was what we needed. A yellow pages for the web. Now a novice doesn’t need to know all the flashy google tricks find data. Google Directory categorizes data in a very clean manner with subcategories and finally the page that displays results – sorted by pagerank. Now that’s something eh! Since I am into computer science, this link blew me off. Then I played around with it and browsed through other categories and it was perfect. Google is just not finding, but finding the right things.

Technology is advancing, though I’m not sure if it is inversely affecting our grey matter!

4 Responses to Google Directory – Redefining search

This Google directory gives only a top view of things. Most of the time I have queries like “How do I open .gt files?” or something like that. While I do agree the directory is useful & all, I still think putting what we think in words to get the answers we are looking for is an art.

Right. As you put it, its an art – which needs to be polished and the lack of this art maybe depriving those who lack it from finding the right information. Organizing content is very important. People realized this long ago and designed databases. Similarly, the expanse of the web is so large that organizing it has become necessary. Google is doing it with PageRank. There are others who do it based on popularity. The directory serves well in a non-faq scenario. Not the solution to all our problems but certainly a step ahead.